Traditionally, for sending mail items, it is necessary either to buy postage stamps to stick on the mail items or to arrange for the mail to be weighed by service personnel in the post office and then buy the exact amount of postage stamps (or postage labels) to stick on the mail items before mailing them. Both methods have disadvantages. For example, with the first method, mail can be sent with insufficient postage, and it is necessary to purchase postage stamps and physically stick them onto mail items. In the second case, much of the sender's time tends to be wasted.
After collecting mail items from mail boxes, mailmen are required to handle sophisticated jobs such as picking out overweight mail items, stamp cancellation and sorting etc. These jobs are often performed manually.
A known self-service post counter accepts coins and franked mail automatically without the need to stick on postage stamps. However, existing self-service post counters are unable to calculate postage and are only suitable for regular and express mail. Recently, it has been proposed to connect an electronic weigher and a postage marking machine having a microcomputer to a self-service post counter. Although the resulting machine provides the functions of weighing, calculating postage, and recording, it is still necessary for dating to be done by hand and the whole system must be operated by manual labour. Furthermore, it is not possible to simplify the mailing procedure. Thus, the disadvantages of wasted time and labour and the possibility of human error still exist.
The present inventor has carried out research and has developed a virtually automatic post counter to match the developing trend of computerization.